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MONTREAL — Like many boys his age, Jamie Campbell was enthralled by race cars, especially the shiny red ones he got to see race around Mosport as a 10-year-old in 1977.

But it was the Ferrari of Gilles Villeneuve that truly grabbed his attention.

“I can remember vividly approaching what is called the Mario Andretti straightaway at Mosport and watching James Hunt, Niki Lauda and, eventually, a bright red Ferrari driven by Gilles Villeneuve goes screaming by and I was totally mesmerized,” said Campbell, a veteran broadcaster with Rogers Sportsnet who has worked Blue Jays games for the last 10 years.

“And when I learned that the guy in the red Ferrari was Canadian — my understanding had always been that Formula One drivers were from far away — that completely sold me. I don’t know what it was about watching this guy out there knowing he was from my homeland, but it completely sold me on him. And I became, for lack of a better word, obsessed with him — well, to this day.”

Campbell was at Mosport, which is now known as Canadian Tire Motorsports Park, because his father, Peter Campbell, was there selling tickets to earn some extra money for the family of five.

“While they were selling tickets, we were just kind of playing in the grass and watching the races,” Campbell recalled. “It’s one of those impressionable things that kids go through when they are introduced to something, whether it’s the circus or a professional sports event, and they are just mesmerized.”

It would be less than five years later, though, that Campbell would experience what he says is the worst day of his life — May 8, 1982 — when Villeneuve was killed in a crash during qualifying for the Belgian Grand Prix.

Campbell would make the trip to Montreal to watch the Canadian Grand Prix several times in the 1980s with his brother, Andy, who was also a huge Villeneuve fan. That’s when the brothers “made a pact.”

“When we were teenagers, we both said that when we grow up, one of us hopefully will have a son and there is going to be a Villeneuve in our family at some point,” Jamie said.

Andy was the first to have kids, but had two daughters, so using the Villeneuve name was out of the question.

Jamie said he discussed the idea of using the Villeneuve name when he and his wife, Alison Redmond, welcomed their first son.

“I had talked to my wife in advance about slipping the name Villeneuve somewhere in there and she was absolutely, adamantly against it,” said Campbell, who had a chance to work the F1 races in Montreal for the CBC as a production assistant on broadcasts with Jackie Stewart and Brian Williams in the 1990s. “And there’s really nothing I could do, and in the excitement of having our first child I let it lie because suddenly it wasn’t as important to me as just enjoying the fact we were having a child.”

The couple settled on Kaden Joseph Peter Campbell as a name for their first-born, who is now 8. But when his second son was born, Campbell did all he could to get the Villeneuve name in — even resorting to subterfuge.

“When Jack was born and it was revealed to be a boy, about 10 minutes after he was born we had decided we were going to name him Jack,” he said. “So, my wife handed me her BlackBerry and said, ‘Would you please send a mass email to my co-workers and friends to let them know the news.’ ”

That’s when Campbell saw an opportunity.

“I thought to myself, this is a good chance here to do something about this,” he said. “I never said anything to her, so I sent this mass email to her co-workers and it essentially read: ‘We’re thrilled to announce the arrival of Jack Redmond Villeneuve Campbell.’ Then I hit send, so this thing is going out to about 100 people or so.”

His wife still had no idea he had done this when replies starting coming in.

“A few of them said, ‘Hey, love the names, what’s the story behind Villeneuve?’ And I remember her face when she started getting replies, saying, ‘What the heck is this all about?’

“I said, I am sorry honey, I feel strongly about this and I was planning on this from when I was very young. She was, admittedly, unhappy, but she didn’t put up a fight and she came around to the idea.”

Campbell says Jack, who is now 5, knows he was named after a race driver and a proud father has shown him pictures of Gilles Villeneuve. And it seems the youngest Campbell shares a passion with his father.

“There was a really interesting instance when he was 3,” Campbell recalled. “He turned to me and Alison at one point and said, ‘Mommy and daddy, when I grow up, I am going to be a race driver.’ And so we said, ‘Well, what colour car are you going to drive?’ And he said, ‘red.’ Which is really weird.

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